March / April 2013 You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance. Franklin P Jones A big thank you to Maya’s family from Preschool for the donation of the tv and to Maya’s Grandma for making our beautiful new pockets. Office News Hello everyone, The cold season is well and truly upon us and we have children with runny noses and coughs. Please be mindfull that if your child is not well enough to It is coming up to that time of the year again, cold season and the end of the financial year. If you have outstanding fees it would be appreciated if you could get these up to date before the end of June. Also if you need to make changes to your ccb or ccr payments now would be a good idea to ring Cheeky Preschoolers centrelink. If you are notified that your ccb cope with the day to has changed can you day happenings of bring tour letter to the Child Care we will office and I can check ring you to send in our system that it them home. In doing has been changed. this we ware thinkPlease remember to sign your child in and out each day of attendance. This is a legal requirement. Outside in the sandpit trying to fill up the tubes but the strangest thing keeps happening the sand keeps coming out the bottom. ing of both your child and those others in the centre. Remember that if you have anything at all you need to talk to me about my door is always open. Sonia xx Please remember to let a staff member know when you are dropping your children off in the morning. We need to know for safety reasons when each child arrives. Banging on our pots and pans. Words from the Toddler Room Can you believe the time, where has the year gone. Everyone in the toddler room is changing everyday. Children are learning through fun play and as teachers it is rewarding to watch. Over the last few months we have been focusing on routine and self help. Children are more independent and able to follow one or more directions. Sometimesthey tell us what is coming next, ―Bee Bee‖, ―Tea‖ (morning tea). The children rae starting to form friendships and using peers names in play. We sing Bee Bee every day, this also helps children acknowledge self and others by name. It is amazing to watch their imagination and role play unfold in home corner. Babies and cooking have been a big part of play. I have been extending on interests by programming activities like; birthday set up in home corner with wooden cake, doctors with babies, nursery set up, kitchen outside and cooking in the sandpit. Through art we learn about colour, textures, we extend on our language as we discuss what we are painting and we use our imagination, creating something new. If you have any questions or requests please come and see us. We are all in homecorner cooking up a storm. Mel, Ann and Kate. We have been exploring different styles of paintings. The children have been enjoying th emore sensory side, tasting and feeling! Junior room news Hello again to all our junior families. What a wonderful time we have been having over the past few months in the junior room. The children are all becoming familiar with their new routines and are enjoying new activities each and every day. Home corner has been a definite favourite amongst the juniors, with many of the children participating in some wonderful imaginative play using the food and cooking appliances, the babies and the dress ups. This is a great opportunity for the children to form new friendships by engaging in social interactions and to learn the importance of sharing. We have also been spending a bit of time working on our colour recognition skills, with the help of flash cards and colour matching games, along with transitions focusing on colour, the children are becoming a lot more confident in being able to recognise and name different colours. The junior children have been enjoying lots of different sensory experi- They have had the opportunity to play with goop, spaghetti, jelly, shaving cream and moon sand. The children are really enjoying exploring all the different textures and they have been giving us some wonderful descriptions of what the different materials feel like; gooey, slippery, icky, wobbly and sticky are just a few. It’s been a great start to our year and I’m sure the rest of the year will bring lots more fun and laughter to all of us in the junior room. Until next time..... Julie and Chif Dressing up and dancing Getting close and personal with a sea star. Sleep and your Preschool child Sleep seems to be an issue at the moment with a few children creating havoc of a night time. I understand this chaos and frustration as my five year old was often bouncing off the walls this time last year. I tried lots of different things, including yelling and screaming at her child care teachers not to allow her to sleep through the day. We set up a routine which seemed to work most of the time. I started by winding her down and started talking about going to bed about 1/2 hour before bedtime. When it was time, we brushed our teeth, went to the toilet and read 3 stories. Josie has also convinced us that playing 2 hiding games will help her go to sleep ( I hated the hiding game BUT….). I then told her that I would be coming back to soon to check on her but she needed to lay nice and quietly. I returned quite quickly the first time and then began to span it out longer until she fell asleep. We tried to have Josie in bed by 7.30pm with the hope that she would be asleep by 8pm (usually 8.30pm). She also took a night light to bed and still does as she used to talk about crocodiles and monsters and scary bears in her room when she would wake through the night, at least now she could see. Soooooo……. I have spent time researching a few things about this and found the same things being repeated. They are……... 36 year olds need approximately 1113 hours per day. Children at this age generally go to bed between 7pm and 9pm and wake up around 6am and 8am. At 3 most children are still napping, while at 5 most are not. Naps gradually become shorter as well. Many preschoolers nap during the day with naps ranging between one and two hours. Children often stop napping after five years of age. Experts say every preschooler is different — some kids will stick with their nap routines from their infant days and other kids will start to refuse napping when they reach the preschool years. The trick is to be consistant, stay calm and make sure your preschooler gets at least 11 hours sleep in each 24 hour period. Getting to Bed Generally, a preschooler who refuses to go to bed is a preschooler who is overtired. Setting an earlier bedtime or starting quiet time earlier on to help preschoolers transition to bedtime might help. Keeping them up later does not. Remember, you have control over when your child goes to bed, not when he or she falls asleep. If they are unable to fall asleep quickly the rule should be that they are to remain lying quietly in bed. Establishing a Bed Time Routine The most important thing here is to help kids develop good habits for getting to sleep. A bedtime routine is a great way to ensure that your preschooler gets enough sleep. Here are a few things to keep in mind when establishing one:  Include a winding down period during the half hour before bedtime.  Stick to a bedtime, alerting your child both half an hour and 10 mins beforehand.  Set fixed items for going to bed, waking up and taking naps.  Keep consistent play times and meal times.  Make the bedroom cozy, quiet and conducive to sleep.  Use the bed only for sleeping—not for playing or watching TV.  Limit food and drink before bedtime.  Allow your child to choose which pyjama’s to wear, which stuffed animal to take to bed etc.  Consider playing soft, soothing music.  Tuck your child into bed snugly for a feeling of security. A note on Naps Most preschoolers DO still need naps during the day. They tend to be very active—running around, playing and exploring their surroundings—so it’s a good idea to give them a special opportunity to slow down. Even if your child can’t fall asleep, try to set aside some quiet time during th eday for relaxing. The best wat to encourage napping is to set up a routine for your child, just as you do for bedtime. Your preschooler, not wanting to miss out on any of the action, may resist a nap but it is important to keep the routine firm and consistant.Explain that this is quiet time and that you want your child to start out in bed but that it’s ok to play in the bedroom quietly if he or she can’t sleep. How long should naps lat? For however long you feel that your child needs to get some rest. Usually about an hour is sufficient. If your child refuses nap time, don’t worry. Kids in this age group don’t necessarily need a nap time every day, but they should have a predictable down time, which means time scheduled at the same point in the day every day for simple resting. Experts agree what’s most important is to establish sleeping routines and be consistent. Preschoolers thrive on schedules. There are no real magis cures to make your child jump into bed every night and go off to sleep. I think with everything I have read, the magic cure seems to be consistency and the understanding that these guys are still very little and are still learning so much, including how to go to sleep and often how to stay asleep. For me, I’m torn between th eemotions of knowing how hard bed time can be for some of you and following the rules and regulations set out that I must legally abide by. I need to follow the Early Years Learning Framework which states that I need to offer an opportunity for all children to rest throughout the day. I also need to follow regulatuions set out by the Office for Early Childhood where it states that I am required to have supervised rest or sleep periods within the program. Our centre policy states that, with this regulation in mind and the ages of the children, we encourage children to rest/ sleep. We do not force any child to sleep and children are not forced to stay awake. We will continue working together to make bed time a much nicer experience for all. GOOD LUCK. Kindy News We have all been very busy learning to recognise shapes, colours and opposites. We are doing this through reading stories, art, transitioning activities and in role play. We will continue with this throughout the year, revising and expanding our knowledge and cognitive skills. Our interests are very diverse and we encourage each child to share in activities. Cooking seems to be the most popular or should I say anything to do with food is popular. We have had fun making ANZAC biscuits (though slightly overdone and my fault, something that my family would attest to) we have cooked different types of pasta News From Preschool Over the next few weeks... We will celebrate the knowledge we have of shapes, numbers and colours and then go from there. The children will discover and reinforce their understanding of who they are, what they enjoy doing and where they belong in their family and within the community. We are being introduced to a wonderful place called Letterland and learning lots of different skills through the computers - I have made a roster for the computers so ALL children will have a day/week to explore and learn. There has been a bit of excitement in the house with a visit from Connie Confidence. Connie will teach us to be brave and to try new things – we're not afraid to make mistakes you know! Over the course of the year, we will meet 5 puppet friends who will teach us important life skills dishes and eaten them enthusiastically, made very healthy salad sandwiches and Lydia and the Monday children have cooked some traditional Serbian desserts. What are we up to at the moment? We are concentrating on ―manners‖, saying please and thank you when we want something done. Practicing sitting at the meals table with our feet on the floor something we forget to do. keeping our is hands to ourselves and sharing with our classmates. We have seen some very interesting shows; the Aussie Dance along show was fantastic with Lily and Lachlan G taking part.We loved the Go Wild show where almost every kindy child patted the snake. Florence was particularly brave as she is really scared of snakes. A visit from Mr David to tell us about how to stay safe in and around trains was fantastic and we learnt to stay behind the yellow line. We have lots of things planned for the months ahead, but if you would like to add to our program we would love to hear from you. You may have noticed that we have a new red lounge in the kindy room that you are most welcome to use. We hope you will take the time to sit with your child, read a story or go through their journal with them. Looking forward to the months ahead. Marg and Kasey such as confidence, resilience, getting-along, persistence and organisation. There will also be lots of fun singing and dancing and playing games incorporating phonics where we will begin to learn our sounds and also begin to recognise and write our names. There will be opportunities to work on our confidence through the wonderful world of drama, the motivation and support of staff and of course just a little bit of craziness from time to time. Are you excited yet? You should be, we are! Show and Tell… I have sent home a roster and note explaining how this will work. I ask that you try to keep to your day and week as our attention spans are quite short and added time on the mat can be quite distressing or as the children say ―boring.‖ Any concerns, please see me. On a sensitive note... I ask if your child comes home with something in their bag or pocket that was NOT in there that morning, could you please return those items. We have some pretty cool stuff up here in Preschool, I know if I was a kid I'd want it too!! HI Ho Hi Ho it’s off to the Post Office we go!